Many events that we were taught about in history class as children, have been distorted; by the rose-colored glasses through which the American, capitalist, imperialistic public school system chooses to see them, and wishes its servants to see them. This is done in order to elicit national pride, and to do away with the qualms we have about submitting to that system.
Here is a list of thirty historical events - between 1916 and 2018 - that either never happened, or else happened in a completely different way from how we were told they unfolded.
Myth #1:
The evil sorcerer Grigory Rasputin cursed the Romanov family in December 1916.
Why It's a Myth:
Rasputin did not curse the family. Rather, he predicted his own death, and said that the Romanovs would die if Rasputin's death was caused by the Romanovs' kinsmen.
Moreover, Rasputin was not evil, nor a sorcerer, but a monk, a medicine man and healer, a holy man, a horse whisperer, and a person intimately concerned with the struggles of poor and Jewish people in Russia, as well as with the bleeding disease hemophilia, from which Alexei Romanov suffered.
For more information, read my August 2019 article "Why Some Believe Anastasia Survived, and Other Strange Facts About the Romanovs and Rasputin":
Myth #2:
Vladimir Lenin took over Russia for communism, 1917-1924.
Why It's a Myth:
Kaiser Wilhelm II, the first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, financed Lenin's move from Switzerland to St. Petersburg in early 1917. Furthermore, the Soviet Union never achieved full communism, but only significant collectivization of agriculture.
Myth #3:
The U.S.S.R. was established in 1917-1918.
Why It's a Myth:
The U.S.S.R. was not established until 1922. The entity that took over Russia in 1917-1918 was the R.S.F.S.R. (the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).
Myth #4:
The Winter Palace in St. Petersburg was stormed in 1917.
Why It's a Myth:
The "storming of the winter palace" was not a real historical event, but rather a "mass spectacle" which was staged by Russians for propaganda purposes in 1920. Tsar Nicholas II was not removed through an overnight coup wherein huge masses of people stormed the palace; rather, he was forced to abdicate, and then Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government was elected. The Romanovs were allowed to take many of their belongings with them when they left Tsarskoe Selo (the Tsar's palace); they were not rushed out and forced to flee overnight.
Myth #5:
Anastasia and Alexei Romanov were murdered with the rest of their family in July 1917.
Why It's a Myth:
The fact that Alexei's corpse, and the corpse of Anastasia or one of her sisters, weren't discovered until 2006, suggests that Anastasia and Alexei may not have been murdered along with the rest of their family in July 1917. The book The Myth of the Basement Massacre explains that all members of the family might not have even been shot in the same room.
For more information, read my August 2019 article "Why Some Believe Anastasia Survived, and Other Strange Facts About the Romanovs and Rasputin":
Myth #6:
Stalinists sabotaged the Spanish republican revolution from 1936 to 1939.
Why It's a Myth:
The idea that Stalinists sabotaged the Spanish revolution on purpose, was the opinion of Leon Trotsky and others. But this is not so.
The Stalinists provided military aid to the Spanish republicans, in exchange for a set of conditions. These included allowing the Soviets to gain influence over military operations in Spain, and the imposition of labor discipline, and the provisions that soldiers may not become drunk (because it would lower their guards when they needed to be ready to fight). Another cause of the Spanish resistance wearing-down was that the republican soldiers had so much democratic power that they could vote their commanding officers out of power. To the Stalinists, who sent them military aid (albeit delayed and insufficient), this was intolerable. Another reason why the Stalinists cannot be blamed for sabotaging the republicans' efforts, is that the Soviets needed to save military equipment for themselves, having tens of millions more people to protect than the Spanish did.
For more information, read my February 2018 article "Reflection Upon the Use of Forced Labor Camps by Anarchists and Communists":
Myth #7:
Josef Stalin capitulated to Nazism in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939.
Why It's a Myth:
Stalin did not allow the Nazis to gain control of Soviet territory, nor control of its soldiers. Stalin's U.S.S.R. was the last country to attempt a treaty with the Nazis, after nearly every single country in Europe had already capitulated, and handed territory over to Germany. Stalin knew that Hitler would eventually violate the treaty. Making a deal with Hitler allowed the Soviets to buy time, move industries eastward, and trade the Nazis the weapons and materiel they needed to eventually destroy each other. Stalin's regime could be described as a dictatorship, and perhaps even as anti-Semitic (especially in the last three years of Stalin's reign), but those facts alone do not mean that it was fascist; certainly not Nazi.
For more information, read my April 2019 article "Stalin Killed Fewer People Than Hitler Did, and How Stalin Tricked Hitler with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact":
Myth #8:
The Nazis and Soviets held a joint military parade in Brest-Litovsk in September 1939.
Why It's a Myth:
Brest and Litovsk are not now - and were not then - a single city called "Brest-Litovsk". Rather, they are two cities; the then German city of Brest, and the Soviet Russian city of Litovsk. The military "parade" was not a single joint military parade, but two different parades; one held in Brest, the other in Litovsk. The militaries did meet, but there was uneasy tension between them. Also, they did not collaborate, nor help train one another. The Soviet training of the German air force ended in 1933, the same year Hitler took power. The cities of Brest and Litovsk are now located in the country of Belarus.
Myth #9:
The Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939.
Why It's a Myth:
The Soviet Union's takeover of eastern Poland, in late September 1939, followed the Nazis' takeover of western Poland by a full two weeks. The Soviet Union arguably "invaded" eastern Poland in order to protect it from becoming occupied by the Nazis, and because the Nazis had recognized eastern Poland as within the Soviet sphere of influence in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Later, the Soviets salted the earth in eastern Poland as they retreated, but this was done in order to make the land less valuable to the Nazis, not as an act of war against the Polish people.
For more information, read my April 2019 article "Stalin Killed Fewer People Than Hitler Did, and How Stalin Tricked Hitler with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact":
Myth #10:
Poles were targeted for genocide in the Katyn Forest Massacre in March 1940.
Why It's a Myth:
The twenty-two thousand Poles killed in the Katyn Forest Massacre were not targeted due to their ethnicity; they were targeted specifically because they were military officers, who had been given opportunities to give up information about the locations of enemy Nazi troops, and refused to collaborate with the Soviets against the Nazis. Less than a thousand of those killed were civilian noncombatants.
For more information, read my April 2019 article "Stalin Killed Fewer People Than Hitler Did, and How Stalin Tricked Hitler with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact":
Myth #11:
The Japanese shot first in the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th, 1941.
Why It's a Myth:
A Japanese submarine snuck into Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7th, 1941. When that submarine was discovered, a U.S. naval officer fired the first shot in the Pacific theater, killing the Japanese submariner inside. The wreckage of that sub was discovered decades later, and reported in the New York Times.
Myth #12:
Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.
Why It's a Myth:
Hawai'i was not one of the United States during the attack on Pearl Harbor; it was a territory of the United States, and was considered as "belonging" to the United States at the time. Hawai'i did not become a state until eighteen years later in 1959.
Source: Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire"
Myth #13:
Pearl Harbor was the only Japanese attack on American targets during World War II, December 7th, 1941.
Why It's a Myth:
Japan also attacked Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines on that day.
Source: Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire"
Myth #14:
The Pearl Harbor attack of December 7th, 1941 was the only successful attack on U.S. military forces during World War II.
Why It's a Myth:
On April 8th, 1942, German U-Boats successfully sank three American ships, with torpedoes, off the coast of St. Simons Island, near Georgia. These ships included the oil tanker Oklahoma, and the Esso Baton Rouge. Twenty-three American crewmen were killed in these attacks.
Myth #15:
The Soviets raised their flag over Berlin during the capture of Berlin in early 1945.
Why It's a Myth:
The Soviets did assist in the capture of Berlin, but the famous photo of Soviet troops raising their flag, high above the city of Berlin, was staged for propaganda purposes.
Myth #16:
Japan refused to surrender to all Allied Forces in August 1945.
Why It's a Myth:
The reason Japan refused to surrender, during its first opportunity to do so, was that the U.S.S.R. was not a signatory of the Allied Forces' invitation to surrender. The Soviet Union did not declare war on Japan until August 11th, 1945; two days after the American bombing of Nagasaki.
Myth #17:
Mao Tse Tung took over China for communism on October 1st, 1949.
Why It's a Myth:
Mao's "revolution" was backed by Western financial interests; he was funded by the "C.I.A. at Yale" (
i.e., segments of Yale University
which were involved with the Office of Strategic Services, which later morphed into the C.I.A.). This occurred after the U.S. backed the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek, which Mao deposed. Additionally, there is debate over whether China ever achieved full communism, and debate over how in-control of China's revolutionary forces Mao was.
Source:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/44326232
Myth #18:
Capitalists formed the resistance to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in October 1956.
Why It's a Myth:
Hungarian socialist workers, whom were opposed to the Soviet system, formed the resistance to the Soviet invasion; not capitalists.
Myth #19:
John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a single bullet, fired by a single assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, on November 22nd, 1963.
Why It's a Myth:
John F. Kennedy was shot by at least two bullets that day. Oswald claimed that he was a "patsy" (that is, a pawn or "fall-guy") between his arrest and his own murder. Some theories assert that it took an entire team, of as many as eight people, to carry out the assassination. Also, the single-bullet theory (or "magic bullet theory") is impossible; for one, magic isn't real, and two, a bullet cannot take a turn in mid-air between penetrating the body of Texas Governor John Connally and entering J.F.K.'s body.
Myth #20:
"Tank Man" stopped a line of Chinese tanks with the intent of preventing them from continuing to oppress the Chinese people at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5th, 1989.
Why It's a Myth:
"Tank Man" stood in front of a row of tanks because he wanted the tanks to stay in Tiananmen Square; not to prevent them from continuing to oppress the Chinese people.
For more information, read my June 2019 article "Eight Things You Might Not Know About the Tiananmen Square Massacre", at the following link:
Myth #21:
Iraqi soldiers threw hundreds of babies out of incubators, and stole the incubators, in 1990, during Iraq's attack on Kuwait.
Why It's a Myth:
This claim was made by 15-year-old Nayirah al-Sabah, in what came to be known as the "Nayirah testimony", delivered to the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10th, 1990. In 1992, she was revealed to be the daughter of U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait, Saud al-Sabah. Premature babies did die during Iraq's attack on Kuwait, but Nayirah's claim that "hundreds" of babies were thrown out of incubators, which were stolen, could not be verified.
Myth #22:
The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were committed by Muslim members of the al-Qaeda terrorist group.
Why It's a Myth:
For one, al-Qaeda is a database of U.S.-backed Afghan militants, which America has kept as a bulwark against the Soviets since the late 1970s. Second, the first bombing of the World Trade Center (in 1993) was reportedly spearheaded by Ramzi Yousef, who had apparently been plied into committing the attacks with alcohol and strippers, hardly the behavior of a devout Muslim; therefore, the narrative about "radicalized Muslims committing 9/11" is dubious. Third, numerous evidence exists which supports the presence of Israeli footprints during and after 9/11, such as the "dancing Israelis" seen celebrating the attacks, and the numerous American Zionists who were in power beneath George W. Bush when the attacks occurred.
Myth #23:
The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were the first successful attacks on a U.S. military target since Pearl Harbor.
Why It's a Myth:
Although the Pentagon was targeted on 9/11, it was not the first successful attack on a U.S. military target since Pearl Harbor in 1941. As explained above, twenty-three U.S. sailors were killed by German U-Boats off the coast of the state of Georgia in 1942. Also, the U.S.S. Cole was bombed on October 12th, 2000, in an attack for which al Qaeda supposedly claimed responsibility. Other U.S. navy ships have been targeted as well, including the U.S.S. Stark incident in 1987 (carried out by Iraq), and the U.S.S. Liberty incident in 1967 (carried out by the State of Israel). The attacks of 9/11 could be described as the first successful attacks on a U.S. military target on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, but not as the first successful attacks on a U.S. military target in general since Pearl Harbor.
Myth #24:
The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were the only attacks against U.S. military targets committed by a foreign country since the end of World War II. / Muslims or Afghanistan "declared war on the United States" on 9/11.
Why It's a Myth:
There is no evidence that any particular national government planned or carried out the 9/11 attacks (unless you count the State of Israel). In 2001, the Afghani Taliban hardly had the resources to carry out such an attack, and there is no concrete evidence that Afghanistan was harboring Osama bin Laden (despite its claims that it wished to turn bin Laden over to the United States). It's possible that the U.K., Saudi Arabia, Israel, and/or Pakistan had advanced knowledge of the attacks - or even participated in committing them - but they could have not done so without knowledge by, and help from, the United States. The 9/11 attacks were thus not an act of war, because no single foreign national government committed the attack without U.S. complicity (or at least foreknowledge).
Myth #25:
The Afghan Taliban sheltered Osama bin Laden in late 2001.
Why It's a Myth:
On October 3rd, 2001, the Chicago Tribune published an article titled "Taliban maintains refusal to turn over bin Laden".
On October 14th, 2001, The Guardian published an article titled "Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand bin Laden over".
Well, which is it? Did the Taliban offer to turn bin Laden over to American authorities, or didn't they? If both articles above are correct, then if this did happen, then it must have happened between October 3rd and 14th.
The Guardian article says that Haji Abdul Kabir, "the third most powerful figure" in the Taliban in Afghanistan, said that the Taliban "would be ready to hand him over to a third country" if they found evidence that bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks.
It's possible that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in late 2001, as American authorities claimed. But the fact that bin Laden was reportedly killed in Pakistan (in a town called Abbottabad) in 2011, suggests the possibility that bin Laden was never in Afghanistan to begin with.
The fact that opium production dropped the year before 9/11, and skyrocketed back up again after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, suggests that opium poppies (as well as lithium deposits, and perhaps also the country's underage male sex trade) were the real reasons behind America's invasion of Afghanistan, rather than getting bin Laden.
Moreover, bin Laden's father had business ties to the Bush family. It's probably more likely that bin Laden was an intelligence asset of the United States, than Afghanistan.
Myth #26:
The World Trade Center collapsed on September 11th, 2001 because its steel was melted by jet fuel.
Why It's a Myth:
Burning jet fuel is hot enough to melt steel beams in a manner that weakens them, but not hot enough to cause them to collapse on its own. Witnesses reported seeing construction crews enter the World Trade Center in the several weeks leading up to the attack. Physical evidence has confirmed that electric charges were placed on many of the steel beams near a 45-degree angle, allowing the top portions of the beams to slide off of the bottom portions. Numerous videos show that the towers fell nearly at free-fall speed, which is commensurate with what happens during a controlled demolition. Towers 1 and 2 may have been destroyed in a controlled demolition because Building 7 was indisputably demolished intentionally. We know this because World Trade Center owner Larry Silverstein admitted that he told firefighters, "pull it" after World Trade Center Building 7 underwent significant fire damage.
Myth #27:
The Pentagon was hit by a plane on September 11th, 2001.
Why It's a Myth:
Only five frames of film show an object hitting the Pentagon. None of those five frames show an object large enough to be a plane. All other video tapes were confiscated by the government from local convenience stores and gas stations. Numerous theories suggest that a missile hit the Pentagon rather than a plane. No airplane wreckage was ever recovered from the Pentagon. The hole in the Pentagon was too small and too neat to have been caused by an airplane with wings. For a plane to have hit the Pentagon, it would have had to fly over a highway, where it would have been seen by hundreds of people.
Myth #28:
Saddam Hussein's Iraq had W.M.D.s (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in 2003.
Why It's a Myth:
Despite the persistent claims of some supporters of the second Iraq War - years after that war ended - that Saddam Hussein allowed W.M.D.s to be smuggled out of Iraq, and into neighboring countries, before the U.S. was able to invade, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq. Granted, Hussein gassed Kurds with mustard gas and nerve agents in Halabja in 1985, but that was the same year that America ceased arming Iran exclusively, and began arming both sides of the Iraqi-Iranian War (which lasted from 1981 to 1989). It's possible that the U.S. not only supplied Hussein with the gas, but in fact wanted him to commit those attacks against the Kurds in northern Iraq (whom were allied with Iran at the time). U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell famously held up a vial of anthrax to urge the world to support the war, but that vial was only a model vial, and did not contain real anthrax, much less anthrax from Iraq. Moreover, the documents which indicated that Hussein sought to purchase "yellowcake" uranium from Niger, were later shown to have been forgeries, obtained through officials in Italy, France, and the U.K..
Myth #29:
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro burned trucks loaded with aid on a bridge connecting Colombia and Venezuela in March 2019.
Why It's a Myth:
In March 2019, a top member of the opposition to Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro told The New York Times that Maduro's forces had intentionally set fire to a convoy full of humanitarian aid (consisting of food and medicine), on the Francisco de Paula Santander Bridge between Colombia and Venezuela. Critics of Maduro claimed that Maduro ordered the convoy to be set on fire. Shortly thereafter, The New York Times retracted this story, after video footage and eyewitness accounts emerged, which showed that the convoy caught fire when it was hit with a Molotov cocktail. That makeshift bomb was thrown by a member of the opposition to Maduro, not by one of Maduro's supporters.
Myth #30:
A "migrant caravan", with Muslim jihadists hidden in its midst, sought to invade the United States in 2018.
Why It's a Myth:
Then-president Donald Trump claimed that "unidentified Middle Easterners" were among the Central American caravan of migrants which Fox News repeated was traveling through Mexico to the United States between March and October of 2018. Most of these migrants - about 80% - were from Honduras. No evidence exists to support the claim that "Middle Easterners", nor "jihadists", were taking refuge among the caravan. President Trump exaggerated the fact that many people in the caravan were "military-age males", leading people to believe that militant Muslims constituted a significant segment of the caravan's members. Trump likely did this in order to increase diplomatic tension between the U.S. and its close Central American neighbors, to pressure Mexico into supporting the continued construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and to justify the use of U.S. military forces against the caravan and against countries appearing to assist it.
Written and published on September 9th, 2021
